{"id":71,"date":"2007-01-30T01:56:18","date_gmt":"2007-01-30T01:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/2007\/01\/30\/ricky-and-leon-depart-and-new-guests-arrive\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T17:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T17:03:14","slug":"ricky-and-leon-depart-and-new-guests-arrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"Ricky and Leon depart and new guests arrive"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\n.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }\n.flickr-yourcomment { }\n.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }\n.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\">\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/48817769@N00\/373970021\/\" title=\"photo sharing\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/134\/373970021_bb09d2e858_m.jpg\" class=\"flickr-photo\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"flickr-caption\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/48817769@N00\/373970021\/\">Ricky and Leon depart and new guests arrive<\/a>.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"flickr-yourcomment\">\n\tRicky and Leon have left now, but we didn&#8217;t finish writing up<br \/>\nour blog, so let me catch up.  Our last full day in Tobago Cays<br \/>\nwas spent doing more snorkeling and dinghying around the<br \/>\nbeautiful reefs.  We had an amazing morning snorkel &#8211;<br \/>\nhighlighted by seeing a huge sting-ray laying on the bottom<br \/>\nof the ocean, in only about 10 feet of water.  We hovered over<br \/>\nhim (her?) for a while, keeping what we hoped was a safe<br \/>\ndistance, until he slowly lifted up from the sandy bottom and,<br \/>\nspookily fluttering its wings, floated away from us.  Much of<br \/>\nthe afternoon was spent doing more boat projects.  Rick and Leon<br \/>\nhelped Mark diagnose a water leakage problem &#8211; and we all spent<br \/>\na few hours getting some stale water out of the anchor locker.<br \/>\nSomehow the whole day flew by and before we knew it, it was time<br \/>\nfor another swim off the boat, a magnificent sunset, and a great<br \/>\npasta dinner (thank you Leon for doing all the cooking and Ricky<br \/>\nfor overseeing everything).   We stayed up late to watch the<br \/>\nmoon &#8211; amazed by the amount of light it was casting on the<br \/>\nsea.  Within a few days it will be full and it was so bright<br \/>\nthat you could literally read by it.  &#8220;The boys&#8221;, as we like to<br \/>\ncall them, became true converts to the boating life.  Except for<br \/>\na few minutes spent on shore on one of the tiny Tobago Cay<br \/>\nislands behind us, we spent about 72 hours without touching<br \/>\nland, and everyone loved it.  Rick loved the idea of going from<br \/>\nthe big boat, to the little boat (the dinghy), out to the reef<br \/>\nto snorkel, and then back to the boat again so that the whole<br \/>\nday was spent on the water.  We had a perfect vacation together.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, we picked up anchor and sailed over to Union Island.<br \/>\nWe took a little detour close to Petite Martinique(Grenada)just<br \/>\nto extend the sail by a bit since it was an absolutely gorgeous<br \/>\nday to sail.  By about 2:00 we were anchored behind the reef at<br \/>\nUnion Island &#8211; another beautiful anchorage, but not quite<br \/>\nas magical as Tobago Cays.  The anchorage is right near the<br \/>\nairport at Union, so we were scanning the skies looking for<br \/>\nShirley, Cathy and Brock&#8217;s plane to arrive from Barbados.  We<br \/>\nare pretty sure we saw it land &#8211; just after 2:00.   We dinghied<br \/>\nover to shore to look for lunch and our new guests.  It is a<br \/>\nsmall island, but it was still a fun surprise to walk into a<br \/>\nrestaurant and find them all sitting at a table &#8211; the only<br \/>\npeople in the whole restaurant.   Later that evening we all went<br \/>\nout to the very nice Bougainvillea Restaurant to celebrate<br \/>\nShirl&#8217;s 80th birthday.  It was a beautiful place and the dinner<br \/>\nwas lots of fun.  Pina Colada&#8217;s for everyone &#8211; with doubles for<br \/>\nthe hard-core drinkers (like Mom).<\/p>\n<p>Today, Monday, we brought Leon and Ricky in from the boat and<br \/>\nmet everyone else down by the dinghy dock.  We all walked to the<br \/>\nairport (a 4 minute walk) to send Leon and Ricky home.  It was<br \/>\nsad to say goodbye having spent such an amazingly fun week<br \/>\ntogether.  After provisioning the boat as best we could, we<br \/>\nreturned to the Tobago Cays with our new guests late this afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>L.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ricky and Leon depart and new guests arrive. Ricky and Leon have left now, but we didn&#8217;t finish writing up our blog, so let me catch up. Our last full day in Tobago Cays was spent doing more snorkeling and dinghying around the beautiful reefs. We had an amazing morning snorkel &#8211; highlighted by seeing &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=71\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Ricky and Leon depart and new guests arrive&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,1],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-caribbean","category-other","tag-caribbean"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}